


Not Such An Average Day

by Mandergee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Lump of Coul, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandergee/pseuds/Mandergee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson's death touched more people than those within S.H.I.E.L.D, and it was left to those closest to him to deliver the news of his death to the people outside. Those same people, in this alternate universe, were the ones who delivered the news that he was no longer dead...but had come back to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Such An Average Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [concertigrossi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertigrossi/gifts).



"I'm glad you could make it." He smiled at her as she slid into the booth, a loud squeak issued forth in reply as bare legs, shown beneath a lavender cotton skirt, made contact with the red vinyl. Her eyes met his and he knew she hadn't wanted to come, had argued with herself for the better part of- he had no way of knowing _how_ long the internal argument had gone on, but only knew by the circles under her eyes that there no doubt had been one. "Did you find it all right?"

"Of course I did- it hasn't been that long." _By the look on her face_ , he thought, _you'd think it was longer than the few months since we last met._ Although a part of him didn't think he quite had the energy to argue it. He was better at hitting the mark with an arrow than he was his own perception, and when it came to Audrey Nathan there was only  one other person he'd ever thought could read her moods accurately. "Why did you ask me to meet you now?"

"I thought you should hear it from one of us." The waitress brought water- he waived off the offer to take their order and slid a menu over to Audrey's side of the booth, gesturing. "The hummus wrap is great, if you like that."

"What is it you thought I should hear, Clint?" Her fingers shook slightly as she lifted the laminated menu from the cracked tabletop- flipping pages without, he suspected, really seeing what was printed on them. He'd chosen the little diner because it had been the place they'd met months _before_ , when he hadn't been the one who had drawn the short straw. But when he'd looked at Natasha as they'd heard the news- her jaw set and eyes blurred with tears that wouldn’t fall- he'd known that he couldn't have allowed _her_ to do it. "That you're all sorry he's gone? That you should have done more to protect him?"

"No. That isn't it." _How do you_ , he thought wearily, _tell someone that the man she thought was dead isn't dead anymore?_ It wasn't an uncommon thing in his universe, to have someone reappear in your life as seamlessly as they'd disappeared. But for Audrey Nathan, a woman whose average day consisted of orchestra rehearsals and dinner at the Richmond, it wasn't something that happened in her universe. _Until it did_. And even after hours en route to the diner, running the words over and over through his mind, Clint had no idea how to say what he needed to say.

\---

 _"You're kidding_ ." _He swung the axe again, felt the satisfying thump, the fierce crack of the wood radiating through the air as his eyes connected with hers. She'd been crying, he realized belatedly, and wondered if she knew how obvious it was. Melinda May, the only person he'd known for as long as Natasha, rarely showed emotion on the surface anymore._ Not since Bahrain _. "He's alive."_

_"Turns out Loki isn't as accurate a mark as you are," She quipped, crossing her arms against the breeze that kicked up, stirring hay and dry earth in its wake. "Even point blank the scepter missed his heart by a few inches- the damage was enough to keep him out for a few minutes, but Fury tells me they managed to get him back."_

_"And why are_ _ you  _ _telling me? Fury too busy to do it himself?" He felt the frustration boiling close to the surface, hefted the axe again and reached for another hunk of wood for the chopping block. Farming hadn't come naturally to him as he'd hoped, but the sprawling farmhouse he'd inherited needed more to heat it than he'd anticipated, and the act of chopping wood_ _ had  _ _come naturally, much to his surprise. Stacks already occupied the tiny shed connected to the mudroom, and he'd hoped to have more stockpiled before winter.  May had arrived on her Harley as he was starting the next batch, the billowing cloud of dust from the narrow country road enough to alert him to her approach long before he heard the roar of the engine._

_"By all accounts, I shouldn't be here. But I don't agree with the Director's assessment that the Avengers should be kept in the dark...and there are others who deserve to be told as well." Her silent stare and uncomfortable shift in stance told him exactly what he knew she wouldn't say- that there was a woman waiting for the news, and May's feelings were all that stood in her way of delivering the news herself. It wasn't a secret- how Melinda May felt about Phil Coulson- but even the most common knowledge wasn't always meant to be known. "You were the first one I could find."_

_"You mean the only one." He could remember days at the Academy, sitting on comfortable leather couches in the common area with his legs slung over Natasha's lap and casually watching the people surrounding them. It was the four of them then- himself, Phil, Melinda and Natasha- and back then they'd shared everything, including where they wanted to go when they were done living that life and ready to move on to another one. Natasha had planned to go to Italy, spend her time in the country with a villa and bottles of red wine- something he'd never imagined her doing but found she was more passionate about than anything he'd heard before. Melinda had talked about Australia, prompting Phil to mention his fondness for kangaroos and the attachment he had to a childhood stuffed animal still packed in his luggage every time he traveled. But Clint had talked about home- his parents’ farm in Idaho, the house he'd grown up in before he'd decided he was destined for higher places- farther places. "Back at the Academy I was the only one who knew where I was going to go when we were cut loose."_

_"And not all of us are- cut loose." He knew she'd gone into administration, tried his best to picture her behind a desk and never quite could. She was meant for the field, to crouch and sneak, get the drop on the target before taking them out and completing the mission- whatever it was. Melinda May had been a legend for as long as he could remember, graduating years ahead of himself and Natasha, making waves alongside Phil Coulson in S.H.I.E.L.D long before Clint built his first nest and perched in it to watch over the world. "I need you to do this."_

_"What I don't know is why you aren't-"_

_"You_ _ do  _ _know," She insisted, and flinched as he swung the heavy axe again, letting it sink into the chopping block before stepping back. "He didn't love me anymore- not the way he was in love with_ _ her  _ _. She deserves to know."_

_“And you don't deserve a second chance at this?"_

_"Not all of us deserve second chances, Clint." Melinda slipped dark glasses over her eyes, swung a long leg clad in black leather over the seat of the Harley and looked back at him before starting the engine, her shout barely audible over the fierce growl of it. He knew about the guilt, knew how it ate at the insides until there was nothing left, and even though Melinda seemed to think she was too far gone...he thought he knew differently."But the better ones do."_

\---

"He's alive." Clint stared at the glass now held between his hands, felt the condensation moisten his palms and wondered how much of it was perspiration from the nerves. Nerves he never had when shooting an arrow, never fought back when he was fighting Chitauri. But to tell Audrey the news that months ago he'd never even imagined _knowing_ \- the sensation reared it's ugly head and threatened to overwhelm him. _If Nat could see me now, she'd have a field day._ "Coulson. He's alive, Audrey."

"You told me...he died. Months ago, an accident. He was gone, Clint. _You_ told me he was gone." Who would have told her if _he_ hadn't, he didn't know- imagined Fury would have sent suits with somber expressions and vague stories of what was involved in Coulson's death. Who he worked for- what sort of company or organization would have sent him into the kind of danger he couldn't come back from. Audrey had been at the funeral- he'd stood in a line beside her, watching as she clutched an unfurling red rose close to her chest and let the silent tears drip down her cheeks. "Are you telling me that everything I've known for the last few months was a lie?"

"I'm telling you that there are a lot of things I _can't_ tell you, Audrey. But what I can tell you is that he died- but they were able to bring him back from it. The damage from the accident wasn't as severe as they thought...the Doctors were able to fix what there was, and he was in recovery. He's alive. He's fine."

"Why didn't he come to tell me?" The hummus wrap she'd ordered at his suggestion sat untouched, congealed and unappetizing as it lay on a plate, the bright yellow plastic vivid beneath it. "What aren't you telling me?"

"That I shouldn't be here." He flashed back to Melinda standing there with the farmhouse behind her, and wondered what would have happened if he hadn't been outside to see her coming. If he'd ignored the knock on the door as she tried to find him while he hid upstairs and watched from the highest vantage point. She wouldn't have delivered the news herself, he thought, instead tracking down another Avenger to go to Portland and find Audrey instead. But she wouldn't have been the one- and even if he didn't think he deserved to be Clint wondered if she knew how much the delivery was costing him. "What Coulson did- I shouldn't even know he's alive, but the person who told me the news wanted me to tell you. They know how important you are to him. We all do."

"Why didn't _she_ tell me, then?" It hadn't occurred to him that she would know about Melinda, if Melinda knew about Audrey Nathan and how important she _was_ to Coulson. "Melinda sent you, didn't she? I saw her at the memorial- he always talked about her, and it was hard not to notice someone who felt the same way I did."

"She couldn't make it."

"Is he going to know you told me?" She picked at a wilted strip of lettuce, glanced up at him before lifting the wrap to take a halfhearted bite. He didn't know how to answer that, thought about how she'd already been brought farther into the fold than he was permitted to take her, knew that even Melinda's clearance only could take them so far. What Audrey was supposed to do with the information now was up to her, although he knew her own knowledge of Coulson's life was less substantial than his had been of hers. "Can I see him?"

“He knows.” He thought for a moment about who else knew, and the discussions that had led him back to Audrey, sitting in the familiar booth once again.

\---

 _"You can't tell him that she knows," Natasha leaned against the railing and watched him stretch out over the length of the porch swing, the uneven distribution of his weight causing it to wobble even as it doggedly swung back and forth. He hadn't known_ _ she  _ _was coming too, had seen her name on the caller ID even as the Mustang roared up the same road May had traveled, the clouds of dust following it even more difficult to ignore. But unlike he and May they hadn't talked much, had retreated to the porch to sit in silence until the sun dropped low behind the trees and the moon glowed bright above the fields. "He'll want to go, and you know he can't."_

 _“But I don't know_ why  _he can't, Nat. When she came to tell me...she didn't tell me the whole story, and you know it."_

 _"She didn't tell_ _ any  _ _of us the whole story, Clint. You know May- she's already giving us more than she's supposed to, and that's more than she would have done months ago. She can only say so much before that part of her shuts down."_

 _"Yeah, well- she should have kept it quiet, then. How am I supposed to go tell his girlfriend that he's alive, but that we can't ever tell_ _ him  _ _that she knows that?"_

_“We all knew what we were getting into. No one ever said it was going to be easy." Natasha curled her fingers around the railing and heaved her body onto it, the old wood creaking slightly beneath her weight. Her eyebrows arched slightly, and he heard his own laughter echoing in the night as hers joined it. It felt good to laugh, having been something he hadn't done in months, and hearing hers was more reassuring than he could have imagined._

_She was right- none of it_ _ had  _ _been easy. From the moment they'd taken up arms against the Chitauri and bonded over the death of one of their own it had gotten even harder- but part of the challenge they all faced was to carry out the mission no matter the cost. His cost, in this case, was deciding whether or not he should connect two people together again because they'd been cheated at something he knew was harder to find than most people could ever realize._

_"Coulson knew the cost."_

_“The cost of dying, sure. But did he know the cost of coming back?" He was going to tell him, Clint decided, though the choice was one he'd never tell Natasha about. If she knew- if anyone else knew- there was more at stake than his own career, and the fewer people he brought into it, the better. "I don't know, Nat. No matter what I decide to do, is it the right thing?"_

_"That's the catch," She took hold of the post beside her and leaned back, let her body hang above the flowerbeds as she craned her neck to look up at the stars. Sometimes, he thought, she wanted to fly as much as he did- but they were both grounded to the reality of their lives. "What_ _ is  _ _the right thing for any of us, really?"_

\---

"Can I see him?" Audrey repeated her question and he blinked, realized that in his recollections someone had refilled his water even as his fingers still curved around it. When he’d managed to drink enough of it to _need_ a refill, he wasn’t sure. "I can help you get in touch with him." A new apartment, a new life- Coulson had it all, complete with a cherry red corvette he'd tagged as 'Lola'. What he didn't have was Audrey, and what Audrey didn't have...was Coulson.

"Thank you- I'd appreciate that." The sun was setting beyond the windows and he could see the brilliant orange as it reflected off of the hood of a car, cherry red shining bright against black asphalt. Inside the car was a faint silhouette, once as familiar to him as the sight along the shaft of an arrow when aimed toward a specific target. This time the target was too close, and as he slipped his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose to protect against the refracted light, Clint felt a wash of gratitude that it was almost over. “Do you think he’ll want to see me? Is he...is everything all right?”

“That’s something you’ll have to ask him yourself.” The water wasn’t refreshing anymore as it coursed down his throat, and when the jingle of a bell broke through the cacophony of voices buzzing around them he slipped a twenty on the table and began to slide out of the booth. “Goodbye, Audrey.”

  
\---

 _"She knows?"_ He looks good, _Clint thought_ , _settling back and lifting the bottle to his lips, letting the cool flow of beer run down his throat. Phil Coulson leaned into the thick cushions of a brown leather sofa and watched him silently. "How did she take it?"_

 _"I haven't told her yet- but I plan on it." The expression that flickered over Coulson's face was one he hadn't expected- doubt, melding with confusion as Clint assumed he was wrestling with emotions he hadn't quite gotten a handle on yet._ Death can do that to a man. _"When I do...I thought you'd want to come along, see her. There's a chance Fury isn't going to let this go over smoothly, and if you can't see her again- you might want to take the opportunity when you can get it, Phil."_

 _“I don't know." Without a suit and tie he looked undressed, and against the undecorated walls he looked even more out of place than Clint had first thought when he’d been allowed into the tiny apartment. But the face was the same, blue eyes still as unnerving as they'd ever been when they stared intently at him, trying to discern what he was thinking._ He was always better at knowing what I thought than I was _. "May told me how she took the news the first time. I don't know if I can do that to her again."_

 _“Look- I'll say the same thing I said to Melinda- " He caught himself, struggled for recovery before the words sunk in. He knew it wasn't his secret to tell- how May felt about the man who had been her partner for most of her career. What no one knew, exactly, was if those feelings were reciprocated, and what Clint knew with a certainty was that he didn't want to be the one to find out, in the instance that those feelings leaned in the opposite direction. "Everyone deserves a second chance- and if Audrey meant as much to you as you did to her, she deserves_ that _much, Phil. You want my advice, I'd tell her. Give her the choice she didn't have the first time."_

_"Sounds like you've thought about this quite a bit."_

_"I've had my chance to get to know her, Phil, and even if you don't have to listen to my opinion you know where it comes from. Audrey loves you, and you know those kind of feelings deserve consideration."_

_"She'll be fine."_

_"Maybe you're right.  Maybe she's going to wake up one morning and realize her life is going to be able to move on without you. But you should consider the fact that the laws of nature went a little bit sideways this time and you both have the chance a lot of people don't have- to hang on to someone who's important to you when you thought they were gone. Take it."_

_"Have you seen her since I died?" He took a swallow from his own beer and Clint wondered if he'd ever seen him drink before- couldn't dredge a memory up of the by-the-book Coulson ever holding anything that wasn't strictly non-alcoholic. But things changed, and it seemed that even a newly resurrected Phil Coulson wasn't immune to that._

_"Once." He recounted the story of how he'd met her at the tiny diner halfway between his side of the country and hers, breathed in the greasy scent of bacon and biscuits as he'd given her the news that broke her heart. "I haven't seen her since then- but I keep tabs on things, just like you."_

_"How did you-"_

_"Newspaper." Clint had spotted it when he'd walked in, opened to the Arts section and sporting a large color photo of the 'Cellist Audrey Nathan preparing her sheet music for an upcoming performance'. "I'm meeting her tomorrow- and there's an extra bus ticket in my bag for you."_

_"I don't travel by bus." Coulson set the beer aside and pulled himself up from the sofa, his white t-shirt easily showing muscles that hadn't softened with his time away from the field._ If anything _, Clint thought with admiration_ , the man has kept in better shape than I have _. "Fury got me connected with a great set of wheels- we'll take Lola."_

_"Oregon is a bit far- even by bus it's going to take us a while to get there, Phil."_

_"You haven't met Lola." In the time they'd known each other Clint had always been aware of the fact that he could count the times Phil had broken his stern countenance as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, and even though things had changed...he had to admit to himself that he hadn’t expected a show of emotion to be one of those things."She'll get us there in plenty of time, and I hope this diner you picked out has some decent apple pie. Its been a while since I've had a good piece of pie."_

 

 

 

 


End file.
